Comments

I always thought the holiday was for Melbourne only – because traffic chaos. But the rest of the country comes to a virtual standstill for anything from a few minutes to a whole rowdy afternoon after a liquid lunch. It’s also an opportunity for people who’ve never been to a racetrack, never placed a bet, never read a form guide to become instant know-it-alls on the chances of the horse they’ve never heard of that was their allocation in the office/workplace sweepstakes.

When local gunsmiths start churning out perfect copies of 0.5 in and 14.5 mm sniper rifles, the concept of “bulletproof cars” will become obsolete.
Why use inaccurate RPGs at nearly point-blank range and risk return fire when you can take potshots at anything (except the front armour of a main battle tank) from several hundred yards?

Fortumately, there is a limited supply of good marksmen so the Taliban and others will have to restrict their use to high-value targets.
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BTW did I remember mentioning the documentary “Cheaper than therapy” about veterans in the US?

See this is the good thing about being a doctor, got one of my collegues to cut open my foot to remove some foreign body today. It’s throbbing now tho. Will get up early tomorrow to follow the US election, the 2008 thread here was a blast, so hopefully PZ will give us another one today….Right, PZ?

via Jezebel: kicker Chris Kluwe (of BEAUTIFULLY UNIQUE SPARKLEPONIES fame) has pulled his blog from the Pioneer Press after the paper published an anti-gay-marriage editorial.

Kluwe went on to write that the editorial tried “to confuse people through obfuscation and selected presentation of arguments.” He’s now live-tweeting his first reading of Atlas Shrugged, which he bought at the airport before the Vikings got on their plane to Seattle for tomorrow’s game. (He’s not a fan.)

In a piece on Kluwe’s exit and the editorial, David Brauer of MinnPost notes that this power play hits the Pioneer-Press right where it hurts: “[Kluwe’s] ‘Out of Bounds’ blog has occasionally brought six-figure page views.”

“Researchers discover how mole rat wards off cancer” http://phys.org/news/2012-11-mole-rat-wards-cancer.html
Two different mechanisms, one for each species of mole rat!
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I want those anti-cancer genes inserted into my genome, pronto !!!
I suppose one could start by germline treatment of small monkeys to see there are no lethal side effects, but since we are talking about fucking cancer, I will be happy with any non-lethal side effects.

Now, give me a set of genes to drastically reduce the risk of dementia, and a set of genes to postpone senescence…

naked mole rats are my fav animal, because they not only don’t get cancer, but they also have no pain receptors and grow extremely old. It’s like god is rubbing it in there with his alleged fav species homo sapiens: “See what I could have done for you nenenene”

There are, broadly speaking, two sorts of people in the world: Those whose nostril on the one side of their face is bigger than the one on the other side (the Nostrilites) and those where the one on the other side is bigger (the Nostrilistas). Roughly equal numbers of people are Nostrilites as are Nostrilistas, neither is overwhelmingly predominant.

There are numerous minorities, such as those with one nostril, or more than two, or who have artificially enlarged / shrunken a nostril, or who have added nostrils, not always to the nose. Two extreme outliers are the Überantis, who claim to have none, and the Superdupes, who claim to be able to adjust the number, size, and location of their nostrils. The claims are difficult to validate, with mostly anecdotal stories and photographs that are either obviously faked, manipulated, inconclusive, or disputed.

Historically, power shifts between the Nostrilites and Nostrilistas on a fairly regular and remarkably fair basis, and coalitions of the two (not always very willing or happy about it) are commonplace. Both groups realize they need at least the partial collusion of the other to line their palms without getting caught, and, on rare occasions, not irritate the vast majority of people, whatever their nostrils.

A useful tactic is to enlist the support of the various minorities, generally in return for supporting the more acceptable parts of each minority’s interests and concerns. The Nostrilistas are usually supported by, and assist, the three-or-more nostrils, whilst the Nostrilites align with the one nostrils. The Überantis and Superdupes, being the extreme and unacceptable fringe, tend to be ignored, albeit the Ancient Texts tolerate their existence.

In the last few decades, some of the Überantis have dropped — or at least no longer say in public — their more extreme demands, such as plugging up everyone’s nostrils or cutting off the noses of anyone with nostrils. These “moderate” Überantis now hold some positions of power or influence within the Nostrilistas, much to the disgust of the old-school Nostrilistas.

As a consequence, the more obviously extreme Überantis have joined the Nostrilistas. These newer Nostrilistas, the Übernostrilistas, are now mostly driving Nostrilista policies. Completely expectedly, given the “moderate” Überantis tendency towards obfuscation, the new Nostrilista policies and positions change from moment to moment. The record for a new Nostrilista policy staying the same is about four seconds.

The increasingly disgusted old-school Nostrilistas are marginalized, driven out, die off, or have their noses punched in, in the traditional form of Überanti debate. Some join the Nostrilites.

The Nostrilites gleefully laugh and rub their hands (after stuffing the palm-grease into their wallets) and imagine a future where the Nostrilistas are not relevant and they, the Nostrilites, have unlimited and continuing power. The Nostrilites don’t actually do anything — other than eat Big Dinners with Major Donors — leaving it to the new Nostrilistas to self-implode.

Nostrilista obfuscation — or at least not having your nose punched in — is surprisingly popular, much to the discomfort of the Nostrilites when they care to notice such things. The Nostrilites’s strategy of doing nothing meshes neatly with the new Nostrilistas say-anything-pretend-to-do-anything instant “solutions”, resulting in a gradual takeover of the halls of power, influence, and palm-greasing by the Übernostrilistas.

The Übernostrilistas don’t collude with the Nostrilites, leading to stalemate and many noses being punched in. The Nostrilites, especially those whose noses have been punched in or who don’t want their nose punched in, learn to talk funny and mumble about more palm-grease being needed. They still don’t do anything…

Just about everyone rolls their eyes about “The Race That Stops the Nation” but pretty much all take the day off anyway. I’m not sure how the actual holiday works and my wife is refusing to tell me, “Better figure that out honey, it’s going to be on your citizenship test.” I think she wants me to get deported.

Warn her about the dangers of deportation to other countries. Perhaps her natural compassion will take the upper hand and she’ll help you out with this tough question. :)

I’m pretty sure the purpose of the holiday is to roll more money in to the racing industry, but more information here . (I like the part about issuing ladies’ tickets, because ‘where the ladies go, the men will follow’.)
Turns out, in the first-ever Melbourne Cup in 1861, Archer beat Mormon. Anyone believe in signs?

The octopi also need genes to postpone senescence, and to produce air breathing organs.
The mole rats may counter by evolving the ability to spit venom at long ranges.
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The primate analogues to honey badgers are Finns and Australians. “plucky” does not cover it.

Now there’s something I hadn’t considered. My initial thought was that I wouldn’t want to deal with the mess of a dog getting a hold of a rotting carcass. But in all likelyhood the smell is a deceased mouse hiding in a drawer or behind something. We’re right next door to a butcher and he baits for mice and sometimes they crawl into my shop to die. If I can’t suss out where it is tomorrow I might make a few calls to dog owning friends.

rq, good point. I rather suspect that it won’t come to any cainine assistance though. By tomorrow morning it should be ripe enough for me to track it down. (Oh yes, I’m so looking forward to work, why do you ask?)

rq
Coffee is the fuel I’m running on.
Now I’m trying to figure out with my Bulgarian counterpart what time-zones weR’e actually in. I’m going to starve tonight. I work from 6-9, then I have an hour to pick up the kids, tuck them in and then at 10 I have to chat to this nice woman for an hour….

Oh the horrors of hockey season! Be warned, that particular plea to your wife’s compassion might not work this year, as the NHL season still has not begun. :( So that one’s a non-argument.
As for the ripeness, I was going to recommend waiting it out, because if it’s small enough, it’ll probably get consumed pretty quickly by even smaller things. That being said, you (and the butcher) probably don’t want the resulting flesh flies around (not that they’ll make much of a difference in the general fly population of Australia). And also, in the dry-bone stages, it’s likely to attract roaches, as well. But it won’t smell anymore! :) Good luck, though.

Giliell

Chat with snacks? Or do you have a moratorium on food at the computer? Alternatively, just pretend like it’s ramadan and you’ll get to break your fast after all is done by glutting yourself on all that is delicious in your fridge. :P

Tony – this probably isn’t your washer problem, but around 7 years ago, I went to the laundry room and found a whole bunch of water on the floor. Checked the sink, the water softener and the washer and found nothing. Realized the sound of running water I was hearing was the outside hose, and ran outside to find BoyChild had put the hose into the dryer vent.

In other news, I finally decided to take some action and I wrote a critical letter/note to a local cell company, for placing a TV ad condoning violence against women. Nothing particularly bitter, and I wonder what their response will be, but I’m surprisingly nervous about it. :/

rq
Sadly, this video chat is part of my college class and has to be recorded, so me munching a plate of spaghetti isn’t that good an idea. (Currently I’m debating myself whether I can quote Pratchett in my presentation. There’s Pratchett for everything)
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Talking about water and leaks, the repair people are working on it and they’re already done annoying me.
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The horror of sports?
European or World-Cup, football. The nature of German premier league means it doesn’t culminate in a big final match which I appreciate a lot, but the international competitions are hell, hell, hell, especially since extatic celebrations start earlier and earlier in the tournament…

Well, that sucks. :( Pratchett will have to do, I suppose. Good luck finding a quote!

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Re: Sports
The Latvian KHL team is currently doing very poorly; the country is in a depression, and, worst of all, people discuss the fired coach more than current political affairs.
I don’t like it when Latvia hosts international competitions; at least when they’re elsewhere, most die-hard fans go, too, and leave the rest of us in peace.

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I also just publicly posted my opinion about the TV ad to my Latvian-version-of-Facebook. I’m nervous. Should I be? I am. Very.

rq
I know which quote I want to use. I need to introduce the concept of Orientalism quickly to people who most likely don’t know it. It’s when he discusses “undiscovered land”, i.e. undiscovered by people who count. I’m pretty sure it’s in “Witches Abroad” which is, of course, the one Pratchett I can’t find at the moment…

Regarding nostrils: Let us be grateful that we are descended from katharrines (nostrils facing down).
The plathyrrine (New World) primates have their nostrils angled out to the sides, which would make blowing your nose awkward.

beatrice
It’s rather in the front, when they travel to Genua and it’s a footnote. I would also need a link to the bool you’re using (like the version on Amazon) so I can referrence it properly.
Thank you a million

Of course, lots of dwarfs, trolls, native people, trappers, hunters and the merely badly lost had discovered it on an almost daily basis for thousands of years. But they weren’t explorers and didn’t count.

WHich is a footnote for:

Some way downriver from the waterfall, which was the second highest anywhere on the Disc and had been discovered in the Year of the Revolving Crab by the noted explorer Guy de Yoyo,* Granny Weatherwax sat in front of a small fire with a towel around her shoulders and steamed.

Had another one of those dreams last night. I won’t subject you to details but the dream triggered another memory — sometimes it was his wife taking the photos as he did things to us. I don’t know how much longer I can this.

==========

Got a phone call this morning from a number shown on my phone as “UNAVAILABLE” and a woman told me that my polling station had moved. I asked who she worked for and she said “Lexington County Election Board.” I told her I was in Luzerne County and asked to speak to a supervisor and she hung up. What the fuck? Was this a wrong number or voter suppression?

Hypergravity helping aircraft fly further [by reducing weight of turbine blades] http://phys.org/news/2012-11-hypergravity-aircraft.html
-First they madea microgravity experiment on board a rocket launched from Esrange in North Sweden, and worked out that an alloy could be created even better in higher than normal gravity.
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Ogvorbis, can you report the incident to the police?

Random political reflection: You know who really ran the government like a business-at least a business that the CEO wanted to succeed rather than one the CEO was running into the ground for the tax write off? Clinton.

I know Clinton was far from perfect, but he did a number of things quite professionally. He instituted changes that vastly improved the VA system. (I worked at VAs before and after Clinton and there was a serious night and day difference.) He appointed someone who had experience in disaster management to head FEMA. He funded the NIH, which is a job generator. Bush, in contrast, acted like a kid who wanted his friends to get all the best toys and whose only clear motivation was to beat his father in something.

The current campaign has been the same. Obama’s campaign has been generally quite professional whereas Romney’s been acting like a spoiled brat who thinks he should be entitled to the presidency because…well, because he is. For example, shooting his mouth off in front of a camera and then claiming that the camera sitting directly in front of him was “hidden.”

So where did this meme that the Republicans were the “business-like” ones come from? Because it sure isn’t consistent with reality.

I can’t quite remember. But I know that sweet potatoes have worked before, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Does it sound implausible?

Tony

…therefore God :)

Hooray! New washer-related dogma!

Alethea

Frozen mashed potato works pretty well.

Cool, thanks.

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Good news! I am going to go get sworn in to practice in federal court this morning by a very cool lady.

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Then I’m going to go vote.

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Last night, during cider-making, a friend of a friend made a comment that for some reason made me respond with “Well, I turned out atheist, so…” He looked almost creeped out, and said “What is with all these atheists?! I keep meeting them everywhere. That’s two now.” I said “That you know of. OOOoooooOOOOOooooOOOO” Pretty sure he thinks I’m weird. That was the goal though.

Oggie: Seconding the suggestion that you report the call to the police. Also, any local reporters and vote monitors you can get ahold of. It might be an innocent mistake, but it’s more likely a deliberate attempt to suppress voting.

Also, Oggie, if you’re not getting professional help for the dreams and other PTSD symptoms, do so. If you’re getting some, consider changing your caregiver or at least discussing with him or her that you’re having more dreams and things aren’t working for you. Don’t wait until it’s a crisis. And hugs through your USB if you want them. They can also be converted to bacon, wine, chocolate, cuddly kittens or calming manatees if those work better for you.

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There’s a first attempt at Italian Cantuccini in the oven. Making cookies is one of my favourite activities with the kids because they can both participate equally despite the age difference, it’s less of a mess than other things, it’s relatively cheap and COOKIES!

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I also had to freak out the young woman who works as a help in the Anglistic library. I kindly informed her that the student computer automatically loaded some links to porn sites. I really hadn’t seen anything like that before. I mean, her reaction, not the porn-links *gg*

The minuses: Odd smell. Voting place was at a rec center, and it smelled of musty locker room.
The plusses: Short line. Free coffee! A man came in, loudly announced that it was his first time voting, because he got his citizenship papers two weeks previously, and then proudly showed them to everyone. The poll workers congratulated him and everyone applauded.

There weren’t any ballot questions, just various people running for office.

I always roast almonds, ground and whole before using them, they taste much better that way.
Mix everything together. That is messy. Form three loafs. that is even messier.
Bake them for 20 minutes at 180°
take out and cut into 1 cm slices and bake for a few minutes more. Keep oldest child away from them if you want to have any.

Fell off the back of a lorry when they were delivering the Earth’s bearings. I have no idea who it was supposed to be delivered to, but they are probably still wondering what happened to the shipment of concentrated pea-flavored drain cleaner.

1. Make a standard white bread dough. Add a pinch extra sugar.
2. After rising, split into loaves according to batch, then roll flat until 1-2 cm thick. Brush with melted butter, then sprinkle with chopped nuts and cinnamon and sugar in a 0.5 cup:2 tablespoon sugar:cinnamon ratio.
3. Roll up like pastry, put in bread pan, bake as ordinary white bread.

It’s election night in the U.S. Tuesday, and that means news types trying to read results under pressure and generally making a hash out of it. We’ve never understood why the big networks, with their herds of sportscasters, don’t employ them to deliver the fast-breaking electoral-college scores or results from Cuyahoga County.

Instead we’ll see quavering reporters melting in the spotlight like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News. C’mon NBC free up your Bob Costas. CBS liberate the Jim Nantz. ABC get Chris “Boomer” Berman to say the President’s numbers are going “Back, back back back…” . Get the winners and losers right in real time. America will thank you.

Thank you for that one, too, Esteleth . And yes, washing the pans after baking something sugary and buttery… I forgot, once.
Unfortunately I spent a lot of time washing it, afterwards. Several weeks, in fact.

blf

re: Sunday – Actually, it just tagged along with the other 6 in order to give people the opportunity to say cool words like ‘hebdomadary’ (which always makes me think of camels).

Ha! Well, since I am now licensed federally and in two states, I’m thinking “Once, Twice, Three Time a Lawyer” will be my punny title of the day. Otherwise, I’m still just a regular lawyer. The really great news of this is that the judge who swore me in was a lawyer two years ago when I interned in her office. She now does appointments for indigent defendants. She gave me all the information on how to get on the list for appointments. I’m really excited to start this new adventure.

Esteleth: Incoming. In the case of a misfire, please advise.
–Markita Lynda—but this is dogma. Do not try to confuse me with facts. Or “facts”. Or even facts.
–*evenmoarhugs* for Ogvorbis; and you were being repressed.
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@birgerjohansen #3
It’s not really a problem. .50 cal rifles aren’t that hard to come by; if insurgents, terrorists, etc. really wanted those things, they’d get their hands on them. The thing is that it takes a really good shot for them to be any good, and you can get an RPG launcher for about the same amount of money/effort, and those are really a lot better at killing people in vehicles, so no one really bothers much.

@Ogvorbis:
More hugs and another recommendation that you discuss the dreams w/ a therapist.

Also, I voted a couple days ago, we’ve had mail in ballots in
Oregon for ages.

Assault is an act that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent, harmful, or offensive contact.

has been in decline, police prefer the new charge

(a) Offense defined.–A person commits the crime of
terroristic threats if the person communicates, either directly
or indirectly, a threat to:
(1) commit any crime of violence with intent to
terrorize another;
(2) cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly or
facility of public transportation; or
(3) otherwise cause serious public inconvenience, or
cause terror or serious public inconvenience with reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.

the 3rd instance is so broad spitting on a sidewalk can get you run in.

The probability that it hasn’t been abused sometime, somewhere is so low as to be unmeasurable. For example, the person in comment 80. It might be interesting to find out how often it’s being abused and whether that abuse is more common than abuse of, for example, laws about resisting arrest or assault of a police officer (i.e. a suspect “assaulting” an officer by hitting his or her head against the officer’s baton.)

#90 Ichthyic any tool to overcharge is pounced upon by police agencies. At the federal level the current president has expanded government encroachment on private liberties and that attitude has trickled down to the cops on the street. We have a pretty decent country department where I am but the nearby town cops/government have a history of being abusive to the point I and others will not spend any money there.

Its getting bad. Next thing I see is neighborhood councils being setup where tinhorn beaurocrats will issue asbo notices and fines with zero juidicial oversight or redress. That’s when the people will start to revolt.

. We have a pretty decent country department where I am but the nearby town cops/government have a history of being abusive to the point I and others will not spend any money there.

wow, I have to say it’s refreshingly different here with your average approach to policing, where cooperation rather than strong-arm tactics are heavily favored.

cops here are genuinely people worth striking up a conversation with when you see them on the street.

that said, at the higher levels, there have been some abuses of note in the last couple of years, the Kim Dotcom issue being the latest, and that being at the behest and influence of… you guessed it: Americans. Americans obviously in the pocket of the RIAA, btw, and abusing the DMCA in the process.

but, like I said, that’s more at the level of the equivalent to the US “FBI” than the way beat cops are taught to handle issues here.

cops here are approachable, affable; not taught to use intimidation as a control mechanism.

I have winter coats for JAL (or her mom) and Little One, hats and gloves for the family, a couple of sweaters, blankets, and more stuff to come. Everyone I know has winter stuff lying around, and they are happy to donate it to keep a family safe. So, if the decision is to move north, you will not freeze any more than the rest of us.

How come that a self proclaimed shy person who doesn’T want to get started because she’s afraid she won’t have anything to contribute to the conversation doesn’t let you get in a word and has to be reminded that it’s freaking 11pm already?

But she was really nice and pleasant to talk to and now I’m cold, hungry and have a headache

Thank you all for the ammunition against the jerkwads on facebook who are proclaiming that “Why should we have to vote for the lesser of two ebils!?!?!” As if it’s a super original intellectual thing to say.

I have winter coats for JAL (or her mom) and Little One, hats and gloves for the family, a couple of sweaters, blankets, and more stuff to come. Everyone I know has winter stuff lying around, and they are happy to donate it to keep a family safe. So, if the decision is to move north, you will not freeze any more than the rest of us.

Yay for not freezing!

Seriously, it’s November and still so hot here. I was told by everyone “oh, you’ll adjust”. Pfffft. Apparently, not. Seriously, people here like 90 with a nice breeze. I need 20 degrees cooler with a breeze works just fine for me. I may have lived here 9 years but I still grew up in MI. I always have to sleep with a blanket. Can you just imagine how suffocating and terrible that is here? Even still in November.

@rq, no we don’t have a national holiday for a horse race. Victoria has a state holiday. The rest of us go to work, and generally have some kind of work party. At mine there were staff races (walking and running a 2.5km course), sweepstakes, a sausage sizzle and a fashionplate & best hat competition.

It’s generally good fun, a nice chance to relax a bit with your workmates. Actually attending the race would be stupid – a great way to spoil all the fun: Marieke Hardy’s piece is not wrong!

Homemade egg rolls (well, I bought the wrappers (I’m not all that into pain)) with port, cabbage, onions, sweet peppers, baby corn, ginger, garlic, carrots, and snap peas. We ate some of the egg rolls and the rest are now unfried in the freezer.

Not as bad as the Louisiana governor’s race that had a confirmed racist versus an ex-governor convicted of corruption. As the corrupt politician quipped, it takes a person with two good hands to vote for me, one hand to hold his nose, the other to push the lever. He won.

I’ve voted for the lesser evil for President, and with great joy for US Representative, because no matter who wins, Michele Bachmann is no longer my rep (yay redistricting). I also voted NO on a measure to put marriage restriction in the State constitution. Now I need to go to the gym because I’m getting a bit obsessive about watching the results, and the polls in my state don’t close for an hour and a half.

I got to vote for the lesser evil for president, and an even closer choice for Senate… Tim fucking Kaine has been running as a better Republican than George Allen, and Allen has responded by attacking Kaine… from the left. Just wonderful.

Aha! I’m watching the Oz coverage of the election results. And we, of course, are not restricted in calling the result in the way that the US networks are. If I get anything … interesting? … I’ll let you know.

Right now. Elizabeth Warren has her senate seat in Massachusetts. That ghastly gift-from-God man looks to be gone.

The last call I saw (we’re now back to the too cautious Americans) gave Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, tentatively, to Obama.

US commentators 158(O)to 154(R). We, being brave, have already given California and other western states to their routinely expected outcomes so we’re running 217 to 167. Totally pointless just yet, but the thing to watch is the body language in the two conference centres, Romney’s lot are a lot quieter and a bit frowny compared to Obama’s cheery and rather loud crowd.

predictions again
Obama as president
repos pick up a few seats in congress lose a few in senate
4 more years of crap government with the winners being the 1% the rest of us get to eat shit sandwiches and like it.
:-(

JAL, keep in mind that for the most part, the red states ((except for Texas) do not have as much of a population and less electoral votes. While more of the land space is “red”; New York, New Jersey, Illinois and other most populous states do counter act a few of those states.

yes I can has biscuits! for years my attempts at making biscuits failed. Even Josh’s recipe left bricks to be hurled at the dog. Thank you Krusteze Pancake mix. Just add enough water to be stiff, into the muffing pan for 15 minutes at 400F and I now only have 3 left of 12 and the dog is pissed because no one threw a tooth cleaner at him.

4 more years of crap government with the winners being the 1% the rest of us get to eat shit sandwiches and like it.

I’ll take “shit sandwich” over being told my government plans to go on yet another killing spree using the military in Iran, or wherever.

I’ll take shit sandwich any day of the week, rather than feeling I am living in a country that felt justified in wiping out hundreds of thousands in a war that had no basis for execution beyond the willful thinking of ignorant zealots.

the shit sandwich Obama is serving sounds much tastier, and less bloody, that the one W served up.

oh, and it also doesn’t come with a side of “shut the fuck up and get back in the kitchen and make babies because you don’t matter, women”

Florida is 29 EV, Virginia is 13, Ohio is 18, North Carolina is 15. Obama is at 148 as of right now, and he’s virtually guaranteed 70 from the West Coast states, which puts him at 218. Very likely Obama also picks up Nevada(5) and Colorado(9), and he has a chance of winning Minnesota(10), Wisconsin(10) and Iowa(6), which would put Obama as high as 258… and only needing 13 EV more to put him over the top. Romney needs to win some of those flyover states AND VA, NC, and FL to stop Obama’s march to the sea. Obama can lose all sorts of states and still win, Romney needs everything to fall exactly his way.

People are already leaving the Republican ‘celebration’ at the Boston conference centre. There were apparently some feeble cheers at a transient improvement in the news from Florida, then all went quiet again.

So Nate Silver pretty much called it dead on. Obama wins the 3 Western states that still haven’t been called, and he hits 274. Everything else is gravy, if he picks up Ohio and Florida that puts Obama up to… math is hard… 321 to 217?

I’ll take shit sandwich any day of the week, rather than feeling I am living in a country that felt justified in wiping out hundreds of thousands in a war that had no basis for execution beyond the willful thinking of ignorant zealots.
Obama continued same and authorized killing American “shit sandwiches” just because, without a judge without any justification at all, with his kids with him because he was rude on the internet in a place where we dont have any troops or a declaration of war.
Want to kill someone? Drag him in front of any kangaroo court and then kill em, leave the children alone.

Obama’s leading Florida by 42K at 95% voting, and could still squeak out Virginia since people were still voting 2+ hours after the polls “closed” and the long lines were in the Democrating-leaning areas… not coincidentally, to suppress voting. Virginia is the difference between a solid win and an EV blowout.

argh bad blockquoting. Will withdraw and leave the gloating about the shock and awe of the next 4 years to you’all. I has a sad for the poor, for the neglected for a least a mild yay for women but nothing will change as far as mkatlkill trying to wipe out as many native americans as possible by assigning money for goods to the white interests she represents

Yeah yeah… look, this “celebration” is like when you manage to get your crappy car to drive cross-country on a spare tire, having to refill the radiator with water every hour for the last 600 miles, and nothing but an AM radio. You’re happy because at least you didn’t have to abandon your stuff and hitchhike, not because the trip was awesome and you have a great car. Obama sucks, but he sucks in ways that Romney sucks as bad or worse, and Romney sucks in a couple of extra ways on top of that.

Obama being president is like a kick in the groin, Romney would have been a knife in the gut.

Thank you Americans, you chose the better of the two choices even if he’s far from perfect. Or so it appears to this outsider.

But now? Now it begins. To those who felt like they were holding their nose to vote for Obama: now is the time to start building a viable third option. You’ve got four years to make it so you can vote with a clear conscience. Best of luck, and I mean that quite sincerely with no snark whatsoever. I’d love to see this world’s military and cultural powerhouse run by an honestly progressive leadership.

And while I sit here gleefully anticipating that concession speech from that man, I’m going to ride my hobby horse and block people’s view.

Anyone who lives in a state with Republican representatives, please write to them and ask them whether they’re going to let their arms be twisted to sign on the dotted line that unelected creep, Grover Norquist, will put in front of them to undermine democratic principles. Such an unqualified, unalterable commitment should be anathema to people who are supposed to respond to constituents’ needs when circumstances change.

That Fox “News” thing was the saddest thing I’ve seen in a pretty long while…

For those of you who missed it, when the Fox analysts called it for Obama, they basically stopped doing a normal broadcast, and Megyn Kelly (Blonde #7, I think) walked back there to ask the analysts if they were really really REALLY sure? Maybe they could check their numbers one more time, please please please?

Tentative Yay‽
When we have elections in Canada or I follow one in Britain (for example) the top hits on google usually include the official government elections website.
Why not the USA?
or am I just google-fuless?

Mitten’s having kittens
But the people they have spoke.
Rommey’s going balmy
But Colorado gets to toke.
This earth has a dearth
Of sense and sanity,
But some folk saw right through
His crazy Christianity.

So, I wake to a world in which coffee is still legal.
Yay!
Thank you on behalf of the rest of the world, especially some 500.000 Iranian civilians who now have quite better prospects not to die in a war. And now please pressure OBama and don’t let him off the hook.

Good morning to all, and a very good one, indeed!
It’s too early to drink, but I’ll have the post-election party tonight. :)
I am very glad and very relieved for all of you in America, as well as for those of us who live in countries that idolize America and see it as THE example to follow (politically).

And to all Australians, apologies for believeing Melbourne Cup Day was a national holiday. I was always under the impression. Oh well; being a state holiday only makes it a little less… whatever it was before.
All the parties sound like a lot of silly fun, though!

+++

Loving the racist comments about Obama’s victory over at this end. Damn, but we’re a white country.

AND (doing this piecemeal because have things on stove that need checking) anyone know anything about that ligament under the tongue, and what to do if it’s too short? The middle one, apparently, has a short one, and the dentist recommends cutting; however, he just got compliments from the doctor about how clearly he speaks, AND he’s not yet 3…
Is the dentist trying to intervene too early, or should we be looking into it more?

The power of math! Nate Silver has won…
Now the “War on Math” begins with the chicken-entrail-reading “pundits” desperately trying to explain why Nate and this mathematics-based predictions are clearly false and inferior to the entrails and preying to the Great Sky Faerie. As The Grauniad put it yesterday:

Most unexpected hate figure

No contest: it was nerdy New York Times statistician Nate Silver, whose implacable refusal to stop predicting an Obama win drove Republicans, and less numerate pundits, into a frenzy. How, they demanded, could his computer model keep showing such good news for the Democrats when old hands, like NBC’s Joe Scarborough — simply by sniffing the air and studying their guts — knew that the race was “tight as a tick”? This was the election of “unskewed” polls (translation: polls revised retroactively in order to favour your chosen candidate). And you can expect the “war on math” to get worse: as pollsters and campaigners get ever more sophisticated in their data-collection, commentators paid to speculate about the horse-race see their livelihoods at risk.

I’d say if he’s speaking OK, probably no need to do anything about it yet, so yes, get a second opinion (my son had this, and my wife’s a speech therapist). It may stretch, but if not, it can be cut, or not, when your child is old enough to decide for hirself. Apart from speech, there’s two issues: keeping the teeth clean – but with good dental care that should be OK, at 17 my son has had no cavities – and, um, the important role of the tongue in intimate relationships.

We probably will get a second opinion. The mother of a friend of ours is a speech therapist (it’s logopēds in Latvian, yah, not sure how it actually is in English), so we’ll probably just call them up for a visit and ask her. All the reading I’ve got in since last night point to surgical correction only in severe cases, and this is definitely not a severe case.
But still, I hate the doctors here sometimes, they’re full of all kinds of scare tactics. I’m not sure what they get out of it, but we’ve had doctors tell us all kinds of reasons for doing things, and when we tell them it’s our third child and the first two were about the same, the reaction is, ‘Oh, ok then…’
The children’s neurologist (not as heavy as it sounds – just looks at nerve development, whether they’re more-or-less on schedule, reflexes etc.) was very pleased with him and didn’t mention his tongue. She actually complimented him on his extremely (for not-yet-3) speech, and I trust her. She’s one of the doctors here that I like, who takes it easy and doesn’t make me worry needlessly.
The dentist, this is the second time he’s seen her, and the Husband took them this time, and her first reaction was ‘Oh MY, how does he even EAT properly, that’s why he’s lisping, that needs to be corrected NOW!’ That kind of reaction makes me think, Ok, second opinion time… Especially since she specifically recommended another doctor in another clinic for the procedure, who’s apparently very good. Hmm…

Good luck with your own dental worries. :/ Tooth fixing never sounds fun, and always makes me think of medieval torture. Sorry, I guess that doesn’t help, especially since I speak from a lack of experience in the situation.
I am the lucky recipient of excellent tooth genes, and have never had anything fixed (besides getting the wisdom teeth pulled – most terrifying experience of my life, due to full anaesthetic). I dread the day when my teeth go bad on me. Also, I hope the children get MY tooth genes, and not the Husband’s. They can have the rest of his fine features, especially the eyes, but it would be nice if they got my excellent tooth genes.

re: Trump – Well, the world IS laughing at them. All the royal Trump, that is. I am. :)

Thanks for that, yes, we do clean the teeth regularly, and so far so good (he IS only 2 and a half…). At least now we know to keep an eye on it, but my google-fu says that it can all correct itself right up to the ripe old age of 6, so now I’m not too worried (just a bit uneasy; I hate the idea of surgical procedures on little children, even when necessary). See above comment about doctors here.

N.Korea could use their expertise & money.
Israel seems desperate to introduce apartheid.
Iran is theocracy. (So is Utah, albeit neither is right kind…)
And I presume the taliban, et al., is always looking for suicide bomber recruits.

So many choices…
I’d suggest rocketing them into the Sun, except I can think of much better uses for the fleet of powerful rockets that would be needed.

(Before anyone gets their panties in a twist at any of the above over-generalizations, please realize there is a certain amount of snark and exaggeration-for-effect going on…)

rq
I hate it when docs treat patients, especially children as good with production check-lists instead of biological systems with lots of variation.
Little one lisps, too, but her speech is so much advanced for a 3 yo that that’s actually the reason why you notice the lisp . Oh, and I lisped, too. My family tried to get me to shay “shit, shit, shit” and all I said was “sit, sit, sit”.

Talking about kids and docs, I need to call the university hospital for the little one’s kidney-check-up. And I’m quite annoyed. Because when I was there in February they told me to come back in 12 months but they wrote the GP that control was in 6 months so when I showed up for her regular check-up it looked like I had neglected her medical care…

Here, it’s my own responsibility to return all reports from specialists to the GP. So I can just not give her the info, and she’ll never know if I’m neglecting care or not. :P
But they certainly do like assigning all kinds of specialists to children. Very young children. I think they get government money out of the reference, for which I can’t necessarily blame them because doctors here are horribly underpaid (except a few in very well-established private practice, but even they like specialists a lot). Still, I wish more attention went to the actual patient.
And yes, that whole thing about children and check-lists and charts. A bit of variation here or there, and they worry that your child will grow up to be some kind of weird physical abnormality – because children who aren’t potty-trained by age 3 will always be peeing in their pants.

rq
Well, I could do that, too, but since my pediatrician knows that she’s lacking in the kidney department and her documents say so, too, it’s a well-established medical fact, so I could hardly hide.
Now I have an appointment in 3 weeks and I’ll ask the doctor how that happened.
I think my pediatrician well believed me because I have an excellent record of keeping them up to date with their check-ups and vaccinations, but I don’t like looking like I had screwed this in any way.

Yep, I’m not trying to build up a reputation for using sexual terms instead of the correct ones :)

*brrr*
And I just noticed that the reason why I’m still freezing after I turned up the heating is not that I’m getting a cold and am tired (ok, I am tired), but because the central heating has apparently been turned off…

Wow, yeah, ok everything makes sense now. :) I actually missed the missing ‘up’ because I automatically read it in the sentence. But yes, clarity in that situation is good.
If you’ve been up-to-date, hopefully your pediatrician will forgive you. And I hope things go well for your daughter’s kidneys.
(I wasn’t suggesting you hide from appointments; I know a lot of parents here who do, because the specialists don’t have a responsibility to inform the GP, and it’s easy for them. Thank goodness that doesn’t work for vaccinations, though, they’re pretty good at pestering parents to get their children vaccinated, although people still avoid that like the plague, too.)

Kidney. Just one, which is the reason we have to go for check-ups. No big deal, the one she has is working perfectly and if i had to describe her to you in ten items then “lacks a kidney” wouldn’t be amongst them. So, it’s really just to see early if anything needs to be done.

And no, it’s not warm. But i spotted a “heating repair” car outside, so it looks like they’re working on it.

It is logical: in a choice between, say, a wife beating drug pusher, and a crazy mass murderer who dumps radioactive waste in children’s playgrounds, people will tend to choose the wife beating drug pusher.
.
Now I am afraid the bugdget negotiations will lead to a compromise mandating wife beating & dumping toxic waste in playgrounds.

I love it, when correcting a translation, when I take the very first sentence apart into very tiny, very little pieces. Bodes well for the rest; basically it becomes a re-translation.
At least this time it’s short and non-controversial subject-matter.

A couple of you have suggested seeing a therapist about my dreams. I have seen a therapist for my “PTSD-like symptoms” but I am scared shitless about talking to anyone about the cub scouts in meatspace. It terrifies me.

==========

One of the right-wingers I know: “Obama only won because he let all the illegals vote. And they suppressed the GOP turnout. And they fiddled with the voting machines. And Romney wasn’t conservative enough.” Not verbatim, not all at the same time, but all said in the last hour. [turns up Zen — currently playing some Bach organ music. at high volume]

I am scared shitless about talking to anyone about the cub scouts in meatspace. It terrifies me.

Possibly Stupidest Suggestion Ever and if so ignore, but could you find a therapist willing to work with you over the internet? If it’s easier for you to discuss it via email, that might be the way to start.

[turns up Zen — currently playing some Bach organ music. at high volume]

Apropos of nothing much, one of the bartenders at the local I frequent has got good taste in music (not quite the same as my tastes, but what he choose is good), and is also a drummer (but not in any band that I know of), put Switched-On Bach on the other night. I haven’t heard any of that in years and it still sounds groovy…

Sorry if this just sounds like a whole lot of unwanted advice and bandwagon-jumping, but I’m going to agree with dianne @255, try to start with something like email or writing it down for a therapist, anything that makes it a little bit easier, but please, please, go see someone.
I have no doubt that it is – and will be – absolutely terrifying, but the longer you wait, the more you give yourself a chance to build up the anticipation, and it will only make it more difficult with time.
At least try to arrange a meeting/writing with a therapist, and just the action of setting up a date or a specific meeting might make the next step a little bit easier.
(I’m not trying to downplay the fear and the terror, but sometimes facing it with simple organizational things helps, just a little bit.)
Please see someone.
Lots of good thoughts and hugs, if wanted, from me.

Me on facebook: “Dear Republicans,
Please feel free to move to Canada. It’s way more conservative up there, promise.”

Not an obscure joke, right? Ignorants threatening to move to Canada if Obama wins, I’m telling them, go ahead, you’ll love it. But I get this, from two cousins of mine (both of whom are stationed in European countries with the US military):

Cousin 1: “Grow up! Some day you will see the truth behind your foolish views.”
Cousin 2: “Portia, I think what Cousin 1 meant to say is that you have friends and family that are republicans as well, and what makes our country great is the right we have to disagree and vote on different issues. If people you don’t agree with moved to Canada it wouldn’t make our Country a democracy and there would be no reason our husbands, sisters, fathers, brothers, cousins :) are in foreign countries fighting/supporting our/your freedom and right to express your political views.”

I love Bach organ works: the resonance, the power(ful) chords, the intricacy of full-body playing… So good, even without any kind of modernization. They sound best at high volume. Absolutely.
I have a soft spot for his unaccompanied violin and cello sonatas, though. Because writing layered melodies which should be played by multiple instruments for just the one violin/cello is badass.

If a molecule is too big, you give it to the chemists. The chemists, for them, if the molecule is too big or the system gets too big, you give it to the biologists. And if it gets too big for them, they give it to the psychologists, and finally it ends up in the hands of the literary critic

Looks out the window… Nope. Just twilight. Nice and sunny today, but won’t be warm enough to eat outside this evening. (Still trying to decide where to go to have a nice celebratory “Thugs lost!” dinner tonight.)

The saddest part is that with the current government, you’re not too far off. (Although, for the hardcore Republican, all that socialized health care might be a bit much… But if the commies don’t get ‘em, the winter might.)

I’ve realized that I have probably been taking a useless herbal remedy for years: Iceland moss throat pills.
I use it for sore throat and coughing. I always felt that it worked, but I guess that was just placebo effect.

Beatrice: that reminds me of all those alt med “remedies”. T likes to take xtra doses of vitamin C when she feels a cold coming on. Recently she felt sick and mentioned taking some. So I decided to look up how effective vitamin C was at combating the common cold. I believe I read a round up of multiple studies-IIRC @ the Cochrane Collaboration-all of which stating vitamin C is not effective at preventing, mitigating or eliminating the common cold. It took me maybe 10 minutes to find that. I didn’t and still don’t know how to broach that with her. Or how to correct people when they’re misinformed.

Well, iceland moss has long been used as a folk remedy, but we all know what that sort of label is worth. According to here , it has been recommended for medicinal use, but not for sore throats. This place seems to have a bit more information on it, but it’s extremely vague.

Personally, I’m inclined to say it’s more of a placebo effect, with the mild benefits mostly just due to the fact that you’re moisturizing your throat, rather than any particularly active ingredient. Then again, I came to this conclusion after a 10 minute internet search.
That being said, it might have some sort of anti-bacterial properties (a lot of plants seem to), but I doubt those are strong enough to reduce swelling or to combat anything that has decided to take root in your throat.
I actually like these capsules (taste-wise), so I will continue to use them (within limits), especially since they don’t seem to be poisonous. And if the placebo effect works, why not take advantage of it? :)

Oklahoma SQ 789:
Would not allow affirmative action programs in state hiring, contracting and education programs. Affirmative action is state policies in place aimed at increasing diversity in state hiring, contacting and education giving weight or preference to underrepresented groups such as women and minorities.

I’ve tried doing some internet searches, but most results go to pages similar to the one rq mentions in #286. Which only shows that yes, it’s probably just placebo.

Tony,
Oh, the “just take more vitamin C” cures. The other kind of throat pills I have are mostly vitamin C. It looks like all the throat soothers are mostly useless.
Might as well just eat mint candy. At least it’s cheaper.

Hey Og, around when I first started getting therapy was around the time that I accepted certain experiences in my life as having been rape. I knew that therapy would be able to help me deal with the fallout from that, but I really really wasn’t ready to talk about it in detail or to say “the r-word” out loud.

What I did was I told my new therapist that something bad had happened to me about 8 years prior, that it was affecting my stress and anxiety levels and my relationship and causing PTSD-like symptoms, but that I wasn’t ready to talk about the bad thing yet.

She respected that, and after several months of therapy I was ready to talk about it. In the meantime she helped me manage my anxiety and stuff without probing into the roots.

Do I read correctly that Icelandic moss is used for thickening sometimes? Sort of like carrageenan? Maybe that’s the root of the idea that it’s good for throats, that it’s mucilaginous and would coat inflamed tissue (like pectin, which now that I think about it I have no idea whether that’s effective either).

. . . I first started getting therapy was around the time that I accepted certain experiences in my life as having been rape.

Not sure if I’m even that far, yet. I mean, I recognize what happened but, save for about three or four days a month when I really get down, I think I’m doing okay. I think I have far more problems dealing with the flashbacks and dreams and panic attacks from 9/11 than from my childhood mistakes.

No dreams last night (that I remember), slept rather well. Woke up with a goat on my face. Warm and snuggly. So all is good.

kristinc @298
That one site does use the word ‘mucilaginous’ a lot, and wikipedia mentions that it is sometimes used in the place of starch as a thickening agent. So… Yes. Probably.
Science has awesome words. Win science!

I have been drunk twice in my life. The last time I was drunk, I put my hand through a plate glass window. I have never, though, woken up from a good drunk under a goat. It felt like a goat had crapped in my mouth, but there was no goat.

Good evening
Today I really realized how exhausted yesterday had left me. Apart from the 6 am to 11:30 pm schedule I also slept badly last night. I think I should have gotten up and looked at the news when #1 came snuggeling into my bed at 3am. So, I’m hoping for a better night tonight.

You have to remember that CA is a huge state with a fairly significant red bloc.

For Prop 19, Los Angeles as a whole declined it by a 4% margin (48-52); that’s 20% of the state right there, voter-wise, and one of the more liberal areas. Frankly, I think that was largely due to the crappy dispensary laws in LA City/County (there was a huge uproar about it at pretty much the same time). The only counties that actually supported it were pretty much the coastal counties from Santa Barbara to Sonoma, and it was facing 30s-level support in a lot of the red counties. Without main-line support in Los Angeles, it wasn’t going to happen.

We just had a similar problem with revoking the death penalty: LA and the bay area supported, but only SF itself had a high support and most of the red counties were very against revoking it. So, it failed.

Folk remedy?
Naah, I will just mix garlic, fermented herring, Icelandic håkarl meat and turpentine.
— — — — —
I watched a sweet romantic program today. Stewie Griffin finally met a girl with the same interests.
Then they tricked India to start a nuclear war with Pakistan.

Clive Dunn Dead: Dad’s Army Star ‘Jonesy’ Dies, Aged 92 http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/07/clive-dunn-dead_n_2088331.html
You know, the old bloke who was a vetean from Lord Kitchener’s Sudanese campaign, and kept shouting “don’t panic!” whenever he panicked.
Clive Dunn was actually a bona fide Brit veteran, and spent 4 years as a POW in Austria during WWII.

Three weeks, and I’ll be on the 2012 North American Tour of Interstate 40, stops TBA. :)

Three weeks and I’ll be on my way to be with my wife again, and I’m NEVER going to be away from her like this again no matter what. No more having to carry a handgun to feel safe while walking my dog. No more living in this loud, obnoxious, boundary-violating ghetto culture. No more none of this depressing shit that has made me miserable over the last 13 months, and no more being angry when I’m not being depressed. No more of none of this shit.

*grins* I’m going to fucking get through this. And I’m not even drunk while I’m saying so.

Joe, I know you have been miserable where you have been living, and I know you don’t feel safe there, and frankly, I would probably feel the same. But please reconsider your use of the word ghetto – it’s a racially charged word even when you don’t mean it to be.

” No more living in this loud, obnoxious, boundary-violating hiphop culture.”
“No more living in this loud, obnoxious, boundary-violating latino culture.”
“No more living in this loud, obnoxious, boundary-violating redneck culture.”
“No more living in this loud, obnoxious, boundary-violating schtel culture.”
any of the above should be fine.

Maybe so, but how else am I supposed to walk around singing In The Ghetto without the word “ghetto”? I just managed to get my wife to start doing the backup singer parts!

Seriously, “ghetto” is the correct word, including the racial component. Erasing the word doesn’t change the fact of the place, or the underlying troubles. This is the high-crime, high-poverty, low-education urban neighborhood with a very low percentage of white people living in it. If you think the WORD is racially charged, try living here.

Buut… whatever. I don’t need to use the word for you to know where I live and what it is like.

As for pants with pockets: As I age, I carry more and more stuff in my pockets. I just added a waterproof lighter, and I don’t even smoke. I wish I could still fit into the pants I found in Indonesia—they have a pocket that will take the wallet I got there, which I don’t call a “billfold” because it was so long that bills didn’t need to fold; which is a nice, deep pocket (I’d offer to send them to you, but I have this delusion I’ll fit into them again). Although there were other pants that I got there that had no pocket depth at all (hint: it is a fricking waste of time trying to see if your nice knife got to the lost-and-found in an Indonesian airport (heck, an airport guard stole a knife right out of my luggage, after he made me put it in there (and it was the knife I’d used to scare off a gang of thieves))).

As for shovelling snow, there’s a reason I don’t live in Michigan any more.

I live in cherokee county GA USA. The head of the teaparty TM lives here. We also have a large latino population and used to be a hotbed of moonshiners but their decendants are cooking meth instead.
I was pleased today to stop at the local walmart (please correct my description with the proper terminology)and upon checkout they had a new trainee young (early 20’s) who was either transgendered (confused as to terminology here looked like a lady but didn’t start that way) or intersexed (same issue) presenting as a lady. Wife didn’t notice but daughter made a rude comment about her looks when we went outside. I explained to her what she saw was a person who preferred to dress that way because of their sexual orientation or lack therof and she was fine with that. As for the trainee I asked her if she was catching on to the routine and the trainer, an old white fart like me said she was doing just fine. The young lady just smiled.

Now if freakin Walmart in backward county fuck GA can be lgtb friendly there is hope for America after all.

Never have I felt so bad about somebody I voted for winning. Now, when he’s blithely shredding civil rights or blowing up civilians in countries we are not at war with, I’m complicit. When he starts a war with Iran in a few months, I’m partially to blame. When he appoints the most conservative Democrats to be on a council with Republicans to come up with another Grand Bargain to destroy my future, I voted for the spineless shitweasel.
Oh, well… a thing done has an end. At least the fucking attack ads are over.

Got another election schadenfreude link for you, from a self-proclaimed “right libertarian” who is despairing that America is dead because Obama is a communist Nazi and the gas chambers are just a couple of years away. His solution? Yelling at clerks in stores that accept EBT. Oh, and defriending Democrats on Facebook. FREEEDOMMM!!!!!!

The comments are awesome, too — he alternates between yelling at liberals who have stopped by to mock him, and yelling at fellow libertarians trying to talk him down from the ledge because damnit AMERICA DIED TODAY!!!!111!!

Good morning to all, and three cheers for those of us not clearing snow!

chigau

You leave me wondering how much snow you actually had, if you couldn’t get the car into the drive with 5 – 10cm of the stuff.
I agree about the sweats, though. As cicely said, all pants should have pockets. Of some kind.

+++

Monday was vomiting child, today it is fever child. The winter season has arrived. I’m getting that paranoid feeling again, where everything I do has the secondary thought of, ‘How can I avoid the germs on this?’

The mildly deranged one has noted your concern. And your suggestion. Neither is conducive to maintaining a healthy cheeseboard. You. Have. Been. Warned.

────────────────────────────────

The problem with moving snow around with a shovel is it makes room for more snow. Excepting Her Mildlyness, Supreme Generalissimo for All Eternity of All Multiverses, snow isn’t very popular. So why make room for more of it?

Leave the snow alone. Then any new snow won’t stay as there’s no room for it.

Yeah, but what can you do, they’re your kids ;)
Feel your pain with sick kids. Mine haven’t been ill for a full 4 days! I know it’s a sign of normal development, but it’s an annoying one.

+++
From Screechymonkey’s link:

Some may choose to push secession in their state legislatures. Others may choose to leave the U.S. for good (Costa Rica, Switzerland, Italy, Argentina, Hong Kong, Israel).

Now I’m gleefully imagining those arrogant American Libertarians being in Italy, getting dealt with in Italian (what do you mean you don’t speak English?), then accusing somebody loudly of being a communist and getting a “no, that’s not a communist, I am” back…

I finished three of four parts of IELTS this morning. I’ve been sick the last couple of days, and since my cold usually ends with a couple of days of painful coughing, I was afraid that I will have a coughing fit or three during the testing today. That would be seriously inconvenient, especially during the listening test. So I had cold medication this morning, then popped a couple of throat pills (the real ones, not some C vitamin crap) and hoped for the best.
I didn’t cough too much, but now everything hurts even more than usually.

Yay Giliell and the presentation!
Also, thanks for the giggle about communists and libertarians in Italy. :D

At least my kids seem to do things on a one-day basis. So far. We’ve been through the whole chicken pox-scarlatina-hardcore flu routine, and I’m hoping none of those make a comeback. But when they get sick, I always get that feeling of dread, that me or the Husband is next… And we all know how much fun children can be when you’re down with fever and miserableness yourself. So far, so good.
And tonight, I’m going to have one for normal development.

opposablethumbs

I think I’ll nuke the germs from orbit, but go by myself and leave blf down here, with the germs. That way I can get a direct report on the germ situation, and, you know, keep my distance from the derangedness of penguins and those under the influence.

Get well soon, and good luck with the test! I’m glad the medication held out for the test.
I recommend cranberries with ginger in tea with honey. :) Yes, it’s a home remedy, but it probably tastes better than those fermented herring mentioned earlier… (Not to mention Iceland moss.)

rq
Good luck with keeping germs at bay. Kids are vaccinated against chickenpox but scarlet fever is their favourite disease to have. Little one had it 4 times, #1 had it three times and I picked it up 2. But they seem to get better, the last round they weren’t very ill or miserable (except for being locked in for 3 days). And Yay antibiotics!

BTW, I take enough Vit C for all of you. Not because I’m trying to take lots of Vit C, but because I have to take some other supplements and somehow they all combine it with Vit C.

rq, in that case better look out for the mildly deranged penguin’s trebuchet-based cheese-delivery system (or the tunnelling possibly sentient cider). blf has mysterious involvement with some powerful special effects going on ;)

So, Giliell , if you’re taking enough vittaminn C for all of us, then, because we’re on the same internet page as you, all of that goodness should also transfer to us, and, hence, keep all illness at bay! Right? :)

Scarlatina can come back??? I thought it was a one-time, immune-system-battle-to-the-death-type deal… Ah well. I just hope that the next time around, it won’t be as severe (and #3 hasn’t had it yet, that and chicken pox, but he’ll be getting the cp vaccine, at least…). Last (first) time the kids had it, eldest had rashes all over and the then-youngest (now-middle)’s throat swelled almost shut – listening to him breathe was a terrible agony, two nights in a row, and very frightening, but it’s all in the past now. He just has a small residual fear of any kind of throat ache, even though he was barely a year and a half. Also, he got the chickenpox (bad) before we could vaccinate him, because eldest brought it home (after being vaccinated).
As far as I can tell, disease works in mysterious ways. :(

rq
Yeah, sadly scarlet fever is Strep B and they come in mnay tribes and are hard to kill :(
Good luck for the youngest making it to the vaccination withou chickenpox.
I had chickenpox on my 21st birthday. I locked myself up in the bathroom and never wanted to leave again…

Ian Stuart Paterson, a breast cancer specialist who worked at NHS and private hospitals in the Midlands from 1994 until last month, is suspected of misdiagnosing at least 450 of the women with breast cancer when they were in fact healthy, and then performing unnecessary “lumpectomy” surgery.
…
The surgeon also performed unconventional “cleavage-sparing” mastectomies on 700 other women, despite the procedure not being sanctioned in the UK. The technique involved leaving breast tissue around the cleavage area for cosmetic reasons but went against national guidelines which state that no excess tissue should be left behind as this could lead to a return of the cancer.

It looks like this case has been dragging for a while. I found an article from December 2011 which says that General Medical Council banned him in July (of 2011, I presume). The today’s article says he’s been working until last month.

I think I’ll nuke the germs from orbit, but go by myself and leave blf down here, with the germs [Well, at least they ain’t peas or horses…]. That way I can get a direct report on the germ situation [Evolving, albeit probably not into a horse or pea…], and, you know, keep my distance from the derangedness of penguins [You think being in orbit is safe? Braahhaawwww!!!1!!!] and those under the influence [Huh? No germs — nor, sadly, any peas or horses — have been harmed in the making of these comments.].
…
[B]etter look out for the mildly deranged penguin’s trebuchet-based cheese-delivery system [Cat. Kitty delivery system.] (or the tunnelling possibly sentient cider [Definitely sentient — it likes cricket and is waiting for the England-India tests… but stooopid, it seems to thinks England needs help embarrassing everyone.]). blf has mysterious involvement with some powerful special effects going on [Yeah, the lair is now mostly pea-proof.]

+++
oh-ohh
I just got seriously told off by my mum in law. In essence I don’t police #1’s looks enough. Today she put on her leopard print dress, which she actually nicked from my sister. Lady’s size 6 short dress with half sleeves is a pretty long dress for a 5yo and she loves it.
She disapproves of her wearing it to kindergarten. I said I didn’t pick it. She said she would stop her and not allow it if she was me. I guess it’s just too slutty. I told her that my rule is that kids who dress themselves pick their clothes themsleves. I only reserve the right to veto something climatically inappropriate.
I love her, but sometimes she’s just kleinkariert. Oh, and she put out Mr.’s clothes for him even when he was already in highschool…

That last sentence explains everything… Mothers who insist on putting their son’s clothes out beyond the age of 5 consider anything not vetted by them inappropriate. Personal experience. (I’m hoping I wil never, ever be like that.)
I like your clothes-choosing policy. We ran into issues when the middle one showed fashion sense before the age of 2, by refusing to wear certain colours.

rq
Well, she still hasn’t gotten over the fact that he’s been wearing his hair long for the last 20 years and she’s a bit disappointed because I think he looked terrible on the pics from the 1980s. OK, everybody does, but his hair is very thick and totally unmanageable beyond tying it back in a ponytail.

Up to her death, my mother-in-law couldn’t get over the fact that her son married me. :) Things had gotten better from the initial few times, but still. There was no way she could understand why he was more likely to take my side than hers.
At least his clothing wasn’t an issue. :P

Well, things that don’t include Wingnuttery, Mildly Deranged Pengunits, peas, getting out of bed, and Portcullisization.

Some of the lessor-known vaccines are for Missing Socksia (but only the left half of a pair, and it doesn’t work very well), STUCK CAPS KEY, and Snakes&Ladders. Sadly, the experimental vaccine for tpoys done’st wrko. incrasineg bumner fot yps,o

rq
In general I really love my mum in law, I couldn’t do it without her, on those issues she’s really narrow-minded. You know when we talked about “looking middle-class” for the neighbours? Well, that’s her…

That was part of my MIL’s charm, too, but since she lived a few towns away, it wasn’t a daily or even a weekly thing.
Hopefully she’ll get better as the children get older and she sees that they’re turning out fine. On the other hand, the older generation seems often inclined to rail against the folly of youth in eternity.

Giliell, oh what fun that is. My MiL stopped that sort of nonsense very shortly after she gave my daughter a haircut without asking us first. Mind you, it wasn’t the unauthorised haircut that did it. I was annoyed by her presumption but not overly, after all, hair grows and the bub didn’t mind.

For some reason that remains unfathomable to me while I was taking her to task for the hair she confessed to putting the Small Fry in the ute (pickup truck) without using a car seat. That of course was a much bigger topic. Her reasoning was “Nothing happened.” and “I never wore a seat belt growing up, much less a car seat.” There was no getting through to her and I’m afraid I ended up yelling “That’s not your decision to make! She goes in her seat or she doesn’t go in the car.”

Later I did some basic (probably incorrect) calculations and pointed out that if they’d had a crash at the speed she admitted driving at it would have been the equivalent of around a 3.3 meter fall. My question as to whether or not she would let her granddaughter stand unsecured next to a drop that high went unanswered.

In the end it worked out well. From that time on she’s been quite good about keeping her opinion to herself and working within our notions of childrearing.

Gilliel, your presentation is the one which includes the Pratchett reference, is it not? There’s yet another one, from Unseen Academicals p. 46, where there is a reference to the Ankh-Morpork Trespassers Society, with a footnote explaining:
“Originally the Explorers’ Society until Lord Vetinari forcibly insisted that most of the places ‘discovered’ by the society’s members already had people living in them, who were already trying to sell snakes to the newcomers.”

Zinc has been a long-standing remedy in the family against cold sores – have a sore? Put zinc on it; it dries right out, and disappears about 2 – 3 days faster.
Didn’t know about colds in general, though. I’ll look into some tasty lozenges! :)

*hugs* for Beatrice. Get well soon.
–rq, I have never been anywhere near Toronto in my whole life. I was especially nowhere near Toronto on Sunday morning. And I know this is true, ’cause I slept in ’til noon on Sunday. And I have a witness.

IOW: I haz an alibi.
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Best of luck to Mr. Rawnaeris on the job offers.
–

What else has a vaccine, while you’re at it?

Well, things that don’t include Wingnuttery, Mildly Deranged Pengunits, peas, getting out of bed, and Portcullisization.

And Horses. Unfortunately, there is still no vaccine for Horses, probably owing to Their fell influence on the intersection of politics and research grant approvals. You just can’t get R&D money for it.
-

The only one I’d like to get more information about is cranberries. I have to remember where I read it, but there was a study on cranberries (or their extract) having some influence on bacterial ability to form biofilms, thus somewhat decreasing the possibilities of some infections. But this is from memory; will do some google searching tomorrow, unless someone has the information on hand.
Then again, on the snake-oil page, cranberries are in the ‘conflicting’ stage of the bubble race, so I suppose it’s not all that bad… Great berries for other things, anyhow.

But what if it’s a killed virus vaccine with mercury in it and it makes me all autistic? I could lose my ability to read people’s faces and become an introvert who preferred blogging to face to face interactions.

My alibi should hold up, no problem. The Husband is known to everyone who knows him as an Honest Man (sometimes tediously so). Additionally, Son and a long list of my friends and acquaintances can confirm that I am next to impossible to pry out of bed before noon on a weekend; and since there was no SCA event or family emergency involved, nor was it Skepticon, the chance that I would willingly bestir myself on behalf of just one Horse, a helluva long way away, on a chilly Sunday morning (after a late Saturday night), approaches zero.

Large numbers of Horses, close at hand, in mid-afternoon…possibly.
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Sub in dried cranberries for the raisins in raisin-oatmeal cookies, especially with pecan chunks, and you have a cookie that I like even better than chocolate chip.*drool*
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Oh, and she put out Mr.’s clothes for him even when he was already in highschool…

TMI alert: My relatives still more or less pick out my clothes. Mostly my partner does at this point. I simply never have been able to care two shits about how I dressed. Besides, he has to look at me more than I do.

cicely
I don’t understand… Cranberries better than chocolate chips? I agree!
We agree on so much else, but the Horses… I can’t get over it. It’s too much. It is a Deep Rift and a Great Divide between us.
And fine, I’ll accept your alibi, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have some minions running around, thinking that every little single horse they take out for you will gain them favour.

It’s been done, which is why I’m more careful with my tongue these days. Plus, if you mix cranberries + chocolate chips + white chocolate chips + nuts (I prefer walnuts and almonds), you get a cookie that is more filling than cookie, plus it’s practically healthy… And still DELICIOUS. :)

I guess that’s a point. We picked my dad’s clothes when we went somewhere public, restaurant or such ’cause he’s colourblind…

Fossil Fishy
Oh no, she’s not as bad as that.
She doesn’t do anything she knows we disapprove of and is very careful to ask before she does something we might disapprove of. But she disagrees mightily with me raising the kids on the principle that actions have consequences and that with duties come rights. So, if they don’t get dressed at all they go to kindergarten in their underwear, and if they do get dressed themselves they get to pick their clothes. Apart from it not being my business, I don’t see an issue with the leopard dress anyway.

Dalillama
Yes, that presentation. Thanks for the quote. I’m afraid I can’t use it sinc unfortunately the presentation isn’t about Pratchett and it’s a bit daring to use him at all, but I need to explain Orientalism in a hurry and I think that quote does part of the work (the other part will be done by some Indiana Jones pictures and, well, a scientific definition)

Not me. I’m just overhead. Keep unauthorized people out, make sure no one misbehaves in fire camp, keep an eye on all of the expensive shit that helps keep the fire camp, and all the firefighters, working. Closest I get to flamey-flamey is sometimes breathing smoke in large doses (not my cigars). And these are good fires. It may be ugly as hell in the short term, but in the long term, the forest gets much healthier.

Horses? There’s joke somewhere about girls liking horses even though they are big, clumsy, stupid and smell bad, while girls dislike boys for much the same reasons.

White chocolate? Eww. That’s a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, and an abomination. It’s nothing but flavorless fat … which is better than no fat at all, isn’t it, so I’m cool, I guess. (Just don’t ask me to eat it by itself. (Not that you were going to.))

Update on the Get-JAL-Outta-Dodge Fund: It looks like JAL has found a place – a furnished place at that. She needs $1200 for first month rent and deposit, plus a TBD pet deposit (let’s say $250 for the sake of argument). Also, ~$300 for getting from where she is now to where she needs to go.
Donations have been trickling in steadily, and as of right now there is about $700 in the fund. Which means that there needs to be another $1050 for all this to work. Once there’s $1200 (i.e. another $500), she can rent the apartment and work on getting there. As of right now, I have 3 or 4 people who have said that they will be sending money on payday or that there are checks in the mail. Based on what I’ve already gotten, I’m going to assume that this is going to add up to somewhere in the neighborhood of $400.
So! Things are looking pretty good. At the risk of sounding like an NPR pledge drive, can I ask if people could help push this the rest of the way? :D